Seth (or Set) was among the first nine deities in the Heliopolitan Theological
System, probably originating from Libya, whose followers appeared to
have worshipped him under crocodile and hippopotamus fetishes. At first
they were centered in Upper Egypt but later spread throughout the country.
There seemed to be no rivalry between the cults of Osiris
and Isis and his cult, perhaps because the people
thought they were all of the same family since Seth was the third child
of Nut born on the third intercalary day. He married
his twin sister Nephthys. Geb
was his father, and his siblings were Isis and Osiris. As a deity he generally
represented hostility and violence, and therefore was typically associated
with Semitic war goddesses including Anat and Astarte.

According to legend he violently tore himself from his mother's womb.
Set is depicted in human form as possessing a head of an animal that possibly
resembling an aardvark with erected ears and a curving snout. He also is
depicted in animal, which bears no resemblance to any living creature, but
has a stuffy erected tail. Other animals symbolizing this god include the
oryx, pig, boar, crocodile, and the hippopotamus when being a disruptive
element in a river.

Seth is mostly recognized for the pat he played in the Osirian legend
in which he battled eighty-four years with Osiris' son Horus.
The assembly of gods judged Horus the victor, but during the battle Seth
tore Horus left eye out, which became the Eye
of Horus. This legend was first recorder in the Pyramid Texts and later
popularized and embellished by the Greek writer Plutarch.

In another myth Seth is credited for having saved Re
who was about to be swallowed up by Apophis, the perennially hostile serpent
of the underworld. The Book of the Dead accredits Seth as being the
"lord of the northern sky" who controls the storm, clouds, and
thunder.

Politically Seth gain supremacy during the Hyksos occupation of the delta,
because these Semitic invaders adopted him as their god, but unlike the
pharaohs, they regarded him as the only god and attempted to impose his
cult on the rest of Egypt, which retained its independence. The Hyksos,
hekaukhaust, "the rulers of foreign lands," found Seth
similar to their own Baals. When Pharaoh Amosis
reunited Egypt after the expulsion of the Hyksos, about 1570 BC, the other
Egyptian gods were restored. However, an indirect legacy of Seth's elevation
perhaps was attempted Amenophis IV to replace all the gods with Aton, the solar disc. A.G.H.